MegaMan: Network Transmission
For Nintendo GameCube.
Guns in games are getting passé. Capcom knows this and it thinks you do too. Why else would it have games like P.N.03 where your dancing heroine blasts disco-fueled energy pulses from her palms? MegaMan's inaugural GameCube game follows the same trend and uses Chips instead of Bazookas and Berettas. These are actually computer chips and they are our key to deleting the viruses infecting the net. Taking it's cue from the recent GameBoy Advance Battle Network series, the stars of this title are a MegaMan computer program and his real-world buddy called Lan. Exploring the real world with Lan is limited to using a pointer to determine where you want to go, but it is useful for stocking up on Health Chips and chatting to folks to progress through the story. As anyone whos ever visited the PlayBoy website will know however, the internet is where the hottest action is. At the start of each side-scrolling level, MegaMan is assigned a bunch of Chips at random. Each chip can be selected and then used as a weapon. There are some that create an arc of flame, toasting viruses in front of and above you, while others provide protective sheilds or three-way fire. Certain enemies are only vunerable to specific attacks and here's where the strategy becomes so intriguing. Chips have limited uses but, once exhausted, you can call on a new set after attacking a set number of virus creatures. The Chips you are assigned, however, are selcted not from the couple of hundred in the game in total, but from the pool of 20 that you have to manually select and group before entering each level. Making sure you take along the right Chips for the corresponding enemies is a strategist's delight and the platform action is as solid as any great platformer or the last 0 years. The big problem with MegaMan Network Transmission is that it's cuddly wuddly visuals belie a mean mother crusher of a game, with a difficultu level aimed at those with god-like gaming skills. You can feel your frustration rising far too high as the game's razor-sharp difficulty ballons out of all control. Most will find MegaMan Network Transmission just that little bit too tough to enjoy, especially younger gamers, it's got great ideas, though, and is a fine example of how to push an ancient genre forward.
Overall: It looks like a pre-school game, but is in fact one of the most hardcore platformers ever. Play it with an open mind and you'll like it. But it is very tough. I give it, an 8 out of 10